Earlier in May 2018, we held a webinar on transfer balance account reporting (TBAR as it’s now known… like we needed any more acronyms) for SMSFs and how these measures are going to significantly impact the way practices interact with their clients.
In reality, it has been more than a decade since there was a requirement to provide a regular level of reporting to one or more Regulators (e.g. ATO). Since 1 July 2007, the need to do any ongoing reporting has been refined down to pension recipients under age 60, therefore meaning that by and large the SMSF sector has had things pretty good. Of course, over the past 5-7 years we have seen the evolution of cloud-based technology evolve from innovator to early adopter and now, in my own view, approaching the latter part of early majority (see innovation adoption lifecycle for further information). Whilst this technology has been an enabler for practices to redefine their SMSF business model, it hasn’t been the regulatory catalyst that TBAR is likely to bring.
And it was this very reason why at our SMSF day events in April 2018 that we decided to get practitioners focused on what they need to do in their practice to evolve as successfully deal with events-based reporting. The success of these activities around Australia spawned a decision to challenge an even broader number of professionals through a webinar which had well in excess of 300 attendees. Within this webinar, we actively polled attendees across a range of topics including segmentation, scope of work (engagement), pricing and business model (see images below from poll results).
You can see these poll results below:
Following on from these polls, we decided to dig a little deeper to better understand just how prepared (or not prepared) the profession is for these new measures. A survey was created that had 168 practitioners share valuable insights into the current work processes and how they expect to engage with trustees to meet the new requirements.
It’s fair to say the result were fascinating and in parts scary… in many instances, I get the sense that practitioners still feel comfortable to simply continue to do what they do, and that unfortunately is no longer the norm.
The eBook
From these results, we have now published an eBook which takes an in-depth look at the survey findings and overlays it with my own views on the issues and opportunities for practitioners in the sector.
To those the participated in the survey, a special thank-you and in return was the promise of a free copy of this eBook, now deliver to you. For those that didn’t participate but want to find out more?
You can purchase a copy of this for $25 + GST simply by clicking on the link below:
As 1 July 2018 fast approaches, make sure your practice is ready for TBAR, because the game has changed.
